It's quite possible that MEPs have been watching far too many episodes of Humans,
after a framework was proposed to consider whether autonomous robots
should be granted the status of "electronic persons with specific rights
and obligations."

On Thursday, politicos sitting on the EU's legal affairs committee approved an AI-related liability and safety report by 17 votes to two, with two abstentions. It was penned by MEP Mady Delvaux.
She said that a "robust European legal framework" was "urgently" needed
to address the apparent growth in the use of robotics for citizens'
daily lives.

Setting something of an alarmist tone, Delvaux
added that the bloc needed "to ensure that robots are and will remain
in the service of humans."

The highly contentious report—which heavily
relies on guesswork about the type of AI and robotics tech we might be
dealing with in the future—calls for a raft of regulatory changes. It
recommends the creation of a new European agency for robotics to help
tackle ethical conduct around the tech.

Nonetheless, MEPs on the legal affairs
committee agreed that designers must adhere to a code that insists that a
"kill switch" is built into robots so that they "can be turned off in
emergencies."

Liability was also heavily pondered in Delvaux's report. It said that the European Commission should, among other things, mull:

creating a specific legal status
for robots, so that at least the most sophisticated autonomous robots
could be established as having the status of electronic persons with
specific rights and obligations, including that of making good any
damage they may cause, and applying electronic personality to cases
where robots make smart autonomous decisions or otherwise interact with
third parties independently.

It would seem that such a "electronic persons"
status would be akin to corporate personhood—which treats a business
entity as an "artificial person." Indeed, human beings are referred to
as "natural persons" in the European Convention on Human Rights.

As an aside, a recent copyright case brought by PETA was chucked out by a judge
after the animal rights' group failed to argue that a monkey named
Naruto had "the right to own and benefit from the copyright in the
Monkey Selfies in the same manner and to the same extent as any other
author."

Delvaux's report also suggested that makers of
driverless cars should be members of an obligatory insurance scheme,
paying into a compensation pot that would cover damage claims.

A general basic income for humans was also put
forward by the committee as something that "should be seriously
considered" in case the "labour market of robots and AI" leads to job
losses.

The draft proposals will be voted on by the
full house of European Parliament in February. In order to proceed, the
controversial plans need to be approved by absolute majority.